Easy to learn, swashbuckling fun
Playing the game is simple enough and you don't need twitch skills or a strategic mind to have fun. Your character interacts with other characters in a limited yet hilarious way using babble language (Chubain!). The graphics are well done and only slightly cartoonish. This is definitely not a simulation type shipbattle game. The battles where you storm cities take forever. In the old game, all you had to do was to lure the entire defending army to attack one group that was located far away from the town on the battle screen. You then hide the rest of your army in the trees between your army and the defending army and watch them get wiped out completely. But that is a different story, er game...
In this one you can save just before you reach someone you are either trying to rescue or attack because they usually give you pieces to important maps. If you don't like the map, just do the battle or rescue all over again. This is the /easy card. The other part that makes this game easy is if you join the right time period and choose anyone but the Spanish. The other three countries are almost always at war with the Spanish and they have all the good cities to attack, and more treasure ships.
The game can be made more difficult by upping the difficulty level to 3-4 different levels. All in all, this game is definitely worth $20, even $30. The fun isn't endless as it doesn't change much, but I find myself coming back to play it more often than other games I have lying around.